Arsenault, Dominic, Côté, Pierre-Marc – Reverse-engineering graphical innovation: an introduction to graphical regimesTechnological innovation in the video games industry is a rich area of research that has barely been explored as of yet. Gamers are always clamoring for novelty and a remedy to the oft-decried “sequelitis” that “plagues” the industry, while game publishers and platform holders secretly plan a next-gen platform to capture the ever-shifting market. In this light, the importance of graphics cannot be understated, as it is usually taken for granted in game historiography that “[g]ame graphics were, and to a large extent still are, the main criteria by which advancing video game technology is benchmarked” (Wolf, 2003, p.53).

Carbone, Marco Benoit, Ruffino, Paolo – Apocalypse postponed. Discourses on video games from noxious objects to redemptive devices Over the last decade, a new narrative has emerged in favour of the medium of the video game. Games are now being described as a series of practices which improve our mental and physical skills (see Johnson, 2005, or the marketing and reception of Nintendo’s 2007 game Wii Fit); they are targeted to a mature audience, and are no more associated with antisocial teenagers (see Prensky, 2006); they are capable of unprecedented aesthetic achievements (see the reception of games like Rockstar Games’ 2011 L.A. Noire); and their consumption allegedly reveals a seemingly never-ending user growth, making them a globalized, pivotal media for the solution of social and political issues on the scale of the whole planet (McGonigal, 2011).

Fuchs, Mathias – Ludic interfaces. Driver and product of gamificationThe recent success of non-standard and playful interface devices like Wii Remote, Move, and Kinect is an indicator of a process that demonstrates that ludic interfaces might be the core driver for a transformation in the sector of video games cultures and beyond. Yet, ludic interfaces are drivers—as well as driven by social developments known as the ludification (Raessens, 2006; Fuchs & Strouhal, 2008), or the gamification of society (Schell, 2010; Bogost, 2010; Ionifides, 2011; Deterding, Khaled, Nacke, & Dixon, 2011).

Gandolfi, Enrico – The two dimensions as a metaphor of control in gaming landscapesNowadays, the 3D is the main setting of the core game language. The engines that structure it are in the heart of economic discourses that cross the entire game industry. Compared to this, 2D (including the perspective visual) becomes a sort of nostalgic totem, able to account itself only in indie productions, on portable and/or low hardware and in famous sagas that use it as distinctive mark. But 2D is not only a residual, resistant memory characterized by an opposition to mainstream patterns in digital entertainment; again, it’s not a mere simplification in gameplay in order to meet casual gamers’ preferences.

Işığan, Altuğ – The production of subject and space in video gamesDespite the dominant view that distinguishes video game space from other spatial representations as navigable space, someone who engages with the screen space of a video game must first and foremost rest at an ideal viewing spot in physical space, which is in accord with the requirements of a proper screening. In other words, one’s illusory experience of navigable space becomes possible only if one’s body in physical space occupies the visual center on which the scenographic arrangement relies in order to function.

Jacobs, Melinda – Click, click, click, click. Zynga and the gamification of clickingAlthough the era of the social network game officially began with the launch of the Facebook Platform in 2007, it wasn’t until 2009 that social network games began to attract the spotlight of mainstream media with the runaway successes of several games. Not surprisingly, since that moment the online gaming industry has been fully occupied with discerning and attempting to replicate the elements that have made those Facebook games fruitful. Both academics and industry members have engaged in a hearty amount of discussion and speculation as to the reasons for the success seen by social network gaming, watching the evolution of the genre as companies have both emerged and retreated from the industry.

Karhulahti, Veli-Matti – Pissing in the Fountain: Videogames and Expressive PerformanceThe drawn-out discussion of videogames as art took a significant step in May last year when the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States added digital games to their list of financially supported art forms. It placed games in the category of Arts in Media among “documentaries and dramatic narratives; media created for theatrical release; performance programs; artistic segments for use within existing series; multi-part webisodes; installations; and short films”. This context defines the nature of videogame art – generally thought of in terms of expression through narration and performance – relatively well.

Lombardi, Ivan – Computer games as a tool for language educationWhen it comes to examining the diffusion of videogames, and of computer games in particular, outside of a recreational context, the use of this peculiar tool for schooling is certainly one of the most interesting subjects an educator could hope for. In fact, owing to data collected by myself and a growing number of researchers in the field of education (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, 2006; Felicia, 2009; Wastiau, Kearney & VandenBerghe, 2009; Minoli, 2009; Lombardi, 2012), teachers are actually intrigued by the educational potential of digital games, but have no idea how to harness this latent power and/or can’t work out how to accommodate the medium specificities in the school curriculum.

Mosca, Ivan – +10! Gamification and deGamificationThis article investigates the cultural meaning of gamification and of its degamificator power. In particular we will see what gamification is (+1), which are the levels of analysis (+2), how gamification makes explicit how culture derives from the game (+3) even if they are different things (+4), how the formation of culture in game and vice versa could delete them and how gamification cannot do that (+5), why every gamification is a degamification (+6), why pointsification cancels fiction and gameness from games (+7), why gamification of devices does not involve a playification of experiences (+8) and how the gamed player stops to play (+9).

Ortoleva, Peppino – Homo ludicus. The ubiquity of play and its roles in present societyIn the last decades new technologies, the rearrangement of living and labour time and other less visible cultural factors have brought some significant historical modifications to the traditionally separated area of the ludic. New types of games have emerged and the threshold between play and reality has been redefined to include aspects of social life that seemed to be unrelated to playing activities.

Perani, Letícia, Regis, Fátima – Games and science fiction. Contributing to define hybrid spaces in location-aware gamesIn What Is Philosophy? (1992, p. 137) Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari argue that a concept is acquired by “inhabiting, by pitching one’s tent, by contracting a habit”. That is to say, creating a concept is like creating an “intersection”, giving meaning to an undetermined land, hence making a territory. Each culture has its ways of setting up places, therefore creating spatial logics for living grounds. These cultural territorializations articulate knowledge, technologies, narratives, experiences of time and meaning, subjectivity and socialization.

Pietschmann, Daniel, Liebold, Benny, Valtin, Georg, Ohler, Peter – Taking space literally: reconceptualizing the effects of stereoscopic representation on user experienceRecently, cinemas, home theater systems and game consoles have undergone a rapid evolution towards stereoscopic representation with recipients gradually becoming accustomed to these changes. Stereoscopy techniques in most media present two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer (usually with the help of glasses separating both images) resulting in the perception of three-dimensional depth. In contrast to these mass market techniques, true 3D volumetric displays or holograms that display an image in three full dimensions are relatively uncommon. The visual quality and visual comfort of stereoscopic representation is constantly being improved by the industry.

Schrank, Brian – Bust A Cup: Reclaiming Risk in PlayOur overly fearful risk society has eliminated much of the beneficial risk that should exist in contemporary games. Games that incorporate actual risk by design can help us overcome delimiting and harmful fears, habits, and laws. Riskier games expose our self-imposed limitations, creating opportunities for us to grow past them. Bust A Cup is a risky game that serves as exemplar in this paper but other games such as Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally Okay Now, Pac-Manhattan, and BorderXing Guide will also provide perspective. These games are risky by design, empowering players to engage in varying degrees of danger that may be legal, physical, and in some cases merely perceived. They reward recklessness with gameplay advantages and are as safe as players collectively decide to make them.

Street, Zoya – Polygons and practice in Skies of ArcadiaThis paper features research carried out at the Victoria and Albert Museum into the design history of Sega’s 2000 Dreamcast title, Skies of Arcadia (released in Japan as Eternal Arcadia). It was released by Overworks, a subsidiary of Sega, at an interesting point in Japanese computer game history. A new generation of video game consoles was in its infancy, and much speculation in the industry surrounded how networked gaming and large, open, tridimensional game worlds would change game design in the years ahead.

Torner, Evan – The Self-Reflexive Tabletop Role-Playing GameTabletop role-playing games combine performance, procedures, and improvisation to both tell stories and reflect on the nature of storytelling. This article discusses the three games 1,001 Nights by Meguey Baker, What Is a Role-Playing Game? by Epidiah Ravachol, and World Wide Wrestling by Nathan D. Paoletta in terms of how their procedures of play and framing devices comment on the tabletop role-playing game medium. Taken together, these three “games on games” demonstrate the inherent tensions of player motivation, collective fiction creation, and selling a “performance” to one’s fellow players, and how RPG theory helps us to understand them.